Archive for the ‘Nikon Coolpix S610’ Category

The camera arrived promptly and on time from Amazon.com. The packaging of the camera itself left a lot to be desired. The camera box was in a larger mail box without any kind of packaging or protective material, and so the camera was probably jostled and banged during the mailing process. Since it is a Christmas present, I have no idea whether the camera was damaged in the shipping. A few pieces of scrap paper or styrofoam whould have assured me that the product was in good shape.

I thought I had done my homework. I couldn’t wait to open the box and start taking pictures. From the moment I turned on the camera, I was disappointed. The screen had a yellow tint to it and while it was quick to turn on and ready to take the shot, the time between shots seemed to take forever……even the digital camera I purchased three years ago seemed quicker.

One of the major reasons I purchased this camera was because it boasted of the active child mode. Between the active child mode, the reviews I read, and a number of it’s other features, I mistakenly assumed it would have a quick recovery time between shots. I tried to change settings–with the flash, without the flash. I added an SDHC 4 gb memory card. Nothing made a major difference. It was slow. Being a mother of three very active children, I need a camera that can take shots quickly without having to use the burst mode all the time…..this isn’t it….

When I downloaded the pictures, I wasn’t happy any of the inside shots. Tryng to give the camera the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was the lighting in my home, but most of the inside pictures had the same yellow cast that I saw on the screen. On the plus side, the outside pics I took seemed fine.

Needless to say, within hours of purchasing the CoolPix S610, I was ready to return it. Four days later after giving it a chance, it is packaged back up and will returned tomorrow….even with a restocking fee.

I would not recommend this camera to anyone with children that wants to catch all of those precious moments!

I bought this camera to use on a family vacation and now I carry it wherever I go. I was looking for something that would be compact, fast, and would work in any kind of lighting. This camera was perfect for my needs. It takes beautiful shots and is very easy to use. The LCD is great, I can see it even in sunlight. I’d recommend buying an extra battery just in case you get caught with a low battery, it has already happened to me once. The battery life is actually quite long but I think that because it had be going for so long I had totally forgot about charging it.

I own a few nikon dslr’s (d200/300/700) and went shopping for a p&S when my spouse’s sony dscT1 went bad after 4 years or so.

I went to circuit city and compared all the cameras. My technique was to zoom into the fire alarms located at the I-beams within the building. I didnt use flash and compared the new 13/14mp canon down to a fuzi finepix 20. my price range was 200-400 dollars. my gut was leaning towards the fuji and olympus cameras but the bottom line was the image quality of my test shots. Too bad I had to make these decisions using the lcd on the cameras themselves.

To wrap it up, along with the sales man’s unwillingly nod of agreement…the Nikon had the best image quality with least amount of noise when zoomed in on the final image.

other considerations:
simple…my wife wanted very few buttons and easy to use
didnt pay attention to the auto smile detector or other settings built in…just wanted to point and shoot with good quality.
this camera had like 4 buttons, menu, delete, zoom/wide, and the up/down arrows with center button. EZ
bottom line…simple to use and great image quality

Nikon has recently added a bunch of new cameras to their line of Coolpix point and shoots. Nikon breaks their Coolpix cameras into three different series. There are the performance, style, and life series that are all designed for different uses. Most of the new cameras Nikon has released are from the style series with only one addition to the performance series and one to the life series.

Nikon's XMAS 2008 additions

Five Styleish Additions for Coolpix ‘S’ Series:

Nikon's Stylish S60

In the Coolpix Style Series they have added the S60 (MSRP$350), S560 (MSRP$250), S610 (MSRP$280), S610c (MSRP$330), and S710 (MSRP$380). They are all 10 megapixels except for the S710 which is a huge 14.5 megapixels. The S610 and S610c are actually the same camera except the S610c adds Wi-Fi capabilities. The S610 and S610c have a 4x wide angle zoom, the S560 and S60 have a 5x optical zoom, and the S710 has a 3.6x wide angle zoom. They mostly have a 3” LCD screen except for the S560 which is 2.7” and the S60 which has a 3.5” touch screen. They all have optical vibration reduction image stabilization which is very nice because the electronic image stabilization some cameras have sucks. This VR technology does a great job keeping your pictures sharp.

The Nikon S560 has a smile shutter (takes picture as soon as it sees someone in the frame is smiling) and blink warning (warns you not to take a picture when somebody’s eyes are closed), a scene auto selector with 15 different scene modes, high quality video recording, red-eye fix, face priority auto focusing, d-lighting, and up to ISO 3200.

The Nikon S610 adds an active child mode that tracks moving objects to keep them in focus and one more scene mode. The Nikon S610c allows you to upload any pictures you take to myPicturetown for free up to 2 GB. You even get free Wayport hotspot service until August 31, 2011.

The Coolpix S710 is similar to the S610 except that it adds program, aperture, shutter, and manual exposure modes which give way more control to the more advanced users.

The Nikon Coolpix S60 is a fair bit different than the rest because it is all controlled by the touchscreen. The display is customizable and the only buttons are the on/off and the shutter release. Cool features made possible by the touchscreen are the touch autofocus and auto exposure that lets you touch a subject on the screen and it will track the object adjusting the focus and exposure to ensure an optimal picture. With the retouch function you can write on your pictures with the included stylus or your finger or attach a frame or stamps. One more cool feature only on the S60 is the HD Pictmotion slide show that lets you make a slide show with music you can watch on the camera or on a HDTV.

One High Performing DC for the Coolpix P Series:

Performance minded New P6000

In the Coolpix Performance Series the only addition is the Nikon Coolpix P6000 (MSRP$500). This is one of the best non-SLR cameras on the market and you are paying for it but it is worth the cost. This camera has 13.5 megapixels with a 4x optical zoom and two Nikkor ED glass elements. The back LCD is 2.7″ and they included an optical viewfinder which is very nice. Important features for the Nikon P6000 are the optical vibration reduction image stabilization, up to ISO 6400, GPS capability, red eye fix, d-lighting, face priority autofocus, wide angle lens converter, and the ability to control everything like aperture, shutter, and exposure settings manually similar to a d-SLR.

One More Value/Budget unit for the L series:

Affordability & Function L18

In the Coolpix Lifestyle Series the only addition is the Nikon Coolpix L18 (MSRP$130). This is a nice and simple little camera that gives you all you really need if you are literally just going to be using it to point and shoot without messing with settings or playing with features. Its 8 megapixels and 3x optical zoom are enough to take extremely clear pictures with any level of zoom. The Nikon L18 does have some useful features like red eye fix, face priority auto-focusing, d-lighting which improves brightness and detail in dark pictures, and an easy auto mode which takes away a lot of the extra options to make it as basic and straightforward to take nice pictures as possible.